lightening the cable

A few spectacular thunderstorms have kept us wet and inside. This morning, the internet did not work, upon inquiring what could be the matter- ( I had been trying to pay my internet bill for days, but found nothing but incomprehension at the office, so I feared some higher power had turned me off..)- I received this enchanting piece of literature by way of text message:

“Hello madam. Today the connection error because of lightening the Cable. All place have problem. Please we are repaired thanks.’

Well indeed we are ‘repaired’ now, and my bill? Still unpaid as nobody knows apparently what to do with the money. Fine by me….

'the unruly traffic has to be diciplined' ( the police)

Since about two weeks this country has traffic rules. Actually the rules were there for about a year or two, but now they get enforced. That this is a lively source of income for the patrolling policemen goes without saying and goes a long way towards explaining their ardor: according to the phnom penh post 60 000 vehicles got impounded in the first two weeks ( I did not know we had that many in this country). Needless to say retrieving an impounded vehicle is expensive, so one can either pay the boys a dollar each time one gets stopped- that gets expensive too in the long run, or one can actually comply. Needles to say that the necessity of any road rules passes most Khmer totally by. And fun activities such as speeding, drunk driving and biking without a helmet or lights will be sorely missed by all of us…

Amongst the more absurd dictates is that each motorbike has to be equipped with not one but two mirrors (they can be purchased from the police directly- as can helmets at slightly inflated prices).

Grandma next door got sick and tired of paying dollar after dollar to keep vehicle and grandson out and free. So she purchased a pair of mirrors. I found her wielding a screwdriver musing,’ the dear lord Buddha only knows why they need those and why two, surly they do not want grandson to squeeze his pimples while driving, so they should not face him- no, it is more likely’, she says, ‘it is more likely that the police will want to squeeze their pimples when they stop us, and of course there are always two of them, of course, they will want a mirror each to themselves..’ and she screws the mirrors on, facing forward towards the road. ‘That should keep ém happy’, she says….

ooh, well as Mrs Child would say

..as I cook for a living and like doing so, and finally got internet, it stands to reason that I would take al ok at what the rest of the world is cooking these days: my god the net abounds with culinary sites: so to read I went, and read and then some more, but ooh…. most cooking seems more to be a spectators sport than anything else these days; vanity, vanity and vanity abounds, chefs on TV, fans of chefs on TV, and fans commenting on fans of chefs on TV(: Julia and Julia or whatever being a case in point.).all of a sudden I do feel so very far away from the rest of the world- which of course I am- but also, I realize that I do not mind too much: when the sites do not talk about chefs talking about chefs *), it gets really sad: when people actually decide to deal with actual food it does get even scary at times::there is this one person who read somewhere that stock is made of bones-and to give her credit, ( oh the dare, the dare!) she tries and succeeds to make stock from bones!- wow.. (For the culinary uninterested: all stock made of bones, and no, it should not come out of a package!!!!).On the more professional sites: oooh horrors, the American legislation tries to force restaurants to put the amount of calories each dish contains on the menu- (they gotta be kidding)-. There seems to have gone quite an amount of suing going on about people getting fat of the restaurant food. (Hey guys ever heard of stopping the eating part when you had enough???).

And on I read and more of the same and I begin to wonder: what about the food? And finally I find a refreshing read; a gentleman actually went, found- and bought a pig’s head and went to cook and did it/ HE DID IT! I laud his effort, but I wonder: living in cambo, where every meat stalls has the (whole) heads of the hogs lined up for purchase to be cooked; doesn’t everybody boil their hog’s head??? They do not of course.

Then there is the slow cook movement, I laud their efforts and think at the same time, how sad, how very sad that we do need a movement to enjoy, what? Old fashioned food.

So, I cite Alice B. Tocklass: every deed in the kitchen begins with murder… a fact; people in the west seem to be unable to stomach these days.

Ooh well, to speak with Mrs., Child…..

*) Btw: all chefs who meet chefs hit each other on the shoulder and call each other chef! Chef! Chef! We all do that, we are all guilty of that one, even in Phnom Penh…

unspeakable things 'n rumtopf

Little Iddy has not been on speaking terms with me for the better part of a day: she came home from an extended foray in the garden, where he had amused herself with unspeakable things, even Elvis normally the uncondended master when it comes to rolling in lovely debris, took one whiff, was truly impressed and went off presumably to find the source of this particular heaven. Iddy, who by now was proudly stinking up the restaurant got caught and transported to the bathtub, which is now –thanks to half a liter of bleach- free of leaches. She got her bath, got dried off and took refuge under the big table where she took turns sulking and torturing the cat.

When it was time of our walk, she came around.

the dogs have been out of sorts today anyways, well deserved as it turned out. Yesterday evening they did greet our guests with a lot more than their usual enthusiasm, they jumped and smiled and barked and danced. Took me a while to figure it out: the guys were very, very happy and very, very drunk…:

One of the specialties in the restaurant is a German rumtopf: a dessert/drink concoction of rum, (tropical) fruit and sugar... In the west this thing takes about six month to get ‘ripe’ enough for consumption, here it takes about three days. After a while, the left over fruit and rum will turn and blow bubbles and get very, very alcoholic and should not be consumed anymore. This load was a goner. And as two bottles of rum are on their way up from phnom penh, I told Bongserrei to throw it away…. So she did, only instead of throwing it into the toilet or the river, the threw it out of the window, and well, the dogs found the fruit and ate it….

On the goose, or should I say left over gander front: Maxilmilan is on death row. In a bamboo cage that looks like something out of the deer hunter.

He attacked a group of guests, Elvis went after him, nailed him, Maxilmilan passed out again, I grabbed him and threw him into the cage. He woke up very quickly, stuck his long neck out of the cage and still managed to bloody Elvis’s nose. (I nailed a plank over the hole and feed him plenty of food until his time…).

Iddy is growing into a very well behaved and adjusted young lady indeed, although her barking policy leaves some to be desired: for example: she goes off at any chicken not mine that comes onto our land as if al chickens of Cambodia were descending on us to murder us in our sleep, throw us into the river and take over our garden. Whenever Iddy goes off, my snoozing bullies get into action, thinking we are under some kind of attack,

Eher? Where is the danger? They yell, get all excited and upset, just to…find, a chicken. They are not amused as barking is only allowed for bill collectors of any kind. I suppose Iddy will learn eventually, as she does most from the bullies, the good and the bad I might add….

One talent of the bullies so far, luckily, escapes her. Bullies, (and I hate to admit it) are accomplished farters. The abundance of fruit to be found, stolen and eaten in my and the neighbors garden goes a long way, of course. So far Iddy does not let fly nearly as badly as the rest of the gang. Good thing too….the bullies can clear the bar in three minutes flat.

Well, there have been some incidents in the past, there was that time when Dt- who, lovely bully that she is, is the uncontested master when it comes to letting fly. Did so and farted the bosses of the United Nations demining committee of Cambodia- who were guests of my corporate guests- straight out of the place. When DT settled between their chairs during dinner I knew we had it coming so I tried to call her over to the bar to contain the damage. It did not work, Ian, who was sitting at the table too, saw what I was trying to do and promptly cracked up, so now the big UN guys thought it was Ian who. farted, and were shocked but too polite to remark upon…everybody thought that was funny, very funny except the UN'ers, who didn’t get it and left shortly thereafter* (*everybody else got spectacularly drunk after they had gone)….

.. A few days later a very pretty and lovely young Japanese lady, an investment banker sat at the bar. The corporate gang had finished their dinner, and were boozing and roaming around... one of the bosses decided to make a play for the Japanese lady, Ian followed him to the bar, so did Dt… Ian, always ready to instigate mayhem started getting between boss and lady- (hey, Ian is not an opera singer for nothing.) so he went: ‘…actually he as we are gay and legally married…’-(He, Ian is -but not to the boss, his spouse, Chris, had already left, presumably to avoid a hangover)... Of course now the young lady, thinks herself save, ‘oh how nice’, she says somewhat, well wondrous would be the word... the boss – had a few (so had we all), but he don’t get it, ‘yes, married’ he mumbles... meanwhile dt, who had followed the exchange with interest so far, decides to settle down and sure enough under the bosses chair and she lets off some of her better ones; ‘ooh not again!!’ Yells Ian. ‘Not again please!’don’t do it now!!’ ‘what? What?’ says boss, who after eating a year in my place seems to be immune for DT’s misdemeanors. The Japanese lady looks rather puzzled, sniffs carefully, and flees right into the arms of a spectacularly ratty Belgian backpacker. They leave- together. ‘What was that all about?’’ the boss says and oh noo,’’ and as it dawns ’she did not think that we were married? And that I did the farting? And ooh man that stinks! ‘’

( he was pretty angry and did not find this funny in the least, actually he has not forgiven Dt nor us- either yet or ever- I think,. -Actually the man lucked out, later we found out that the young Japanese flower is an accomplished martial arts master)….

Iddy's Collection

..After a few busy days in the restaurant it was time to restock- for as far as that is possible hereabouts: there is a ‘Vietnamese Depot’ i.e. a barn like dark and dusty endeavor that sells whole sale, what? A whole lot of things- most of them use less, provided one can find them at all. But, yes, they do have beer and pretty decent coffee. While stocking up on those items, I also found a small pink rubber ball. I bought it for Iddy. She used to have one just like this. A while ago a depressingly new age Norwegian family- from Goteborg- came to the restaurant, their four year old brat being brought up in the ‘anti authoritative’ manner ( I thought that one went out with the arc… not so). The brat managed not surprisingly to annoy the shit out of my staff, me and a group of expats from pp, who had already suffered several days of this toddler’s unchecked tantrums at their guesthouse. Somehow the brat got a hold of Iddy’s ball and chewed it to piece while Iddy mournfully looked on. Everybody except the parents saws it, but none of us found it necessary to inform them that their off spring was dining on the probably very germ ridden chewy toy of my dog… the remains of the ball got carefully hidden amongst Iddy’s other treasures behind the jackfruit tree, but for playing it was useless by now. When I bounced the new ball in Iddy’s direction, she jumped up and after it. So did Elvis, who grabbed the ball, sniffed it and said:’ man you stupid, whaddaya want this for? Can’t even eat it’… Iddy, bowing to peer pressure promptly lost interest too.

When I hid ‘the ball behind the tree, in the hope to rekindle her interest, her latest treasures included:

Three wine corks, the head of a chicken that my neighbor sacrificed to the spirits in her garden, part of an umbrella spoke, a lighter, a pack of cigarettes and a flashlight… made me wonders: , what could she be possibly up to, behind that jack fruit tree???

those geese are more trouble than they're...

Seems that our goose problems are far from over: Iddy has learned that one can win from a goose…So yesterday she decided to give chase on old Maxilmilan, who was actually just minding his own business – for once. Maximilian fled in horror, pursued by Iddy; he somehow managed to stay out of her reach by about the length of a tail feather.

Aww, said Elvis who was soaking up a few sparse rainy season sunbeams on the front step: that’s not how it’s done! And he got away before I could get a hold of him. And sure enough, he had Maximilian crucified in the greenery faster than I could reach them. Iddy jumping up and down excitedly, yelping kill him Elvis, kill him! Don’t I yelled, and tackled Elvis by the collar , pulled him off Maxilmilan and sent him flying with an unusual, though well deserved kick in the cojones. Meanwhile, Maximilian lies prone, though no blood is visible. I pick him up by the wings, lifeless he hangs, reminding me of Swans Lake for some reason.

Iddy still tried to grab his tail feathers, I chased her off and she joined Elvis a few feet away. Meanwhile Maxilmilan hangs still lifeless in my arms. I check him, no his neck is not broken, a heart attack? I think faintly when a shifting, crunching sound underfoot gets mine and the dog’s attention. Aww, and I told and told the gardener, put some wood over that old well, instead she chose to use corrugated iron, not strong enough to bear our combined weight, all three of us jump back- fast. While the iron sheet slowly slides into the abyss and we scramble for solid ground Maxilmilan the little shit decides to wake up from his dead faint, turns his-unharmed and surprisingly agile neck and promptly bites my shoulder. Hard. Ouch! Now I am ready to kill the little monster, and the dogs know it, ‘see....’ they say and grin. ( the only reason I did not commit cold blooded murder then and there is that I do not want to give a bad example to the dogs, and besides there resides already a frozen goose in the freezer, and there is no more room for yet another. Maybe I should send an n sms through the local expat community, ‘Sunday dinner will be roast goose!’)

...nonono, not a Georgia O'keefe, just one of my orchids close up. it just bust into almost- spontaneus bloom